Barbershop music

Categories: Barbershop music

Barbershop harmony is a style of unaccompanied vocal music characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture. Each of the four parts has its own role: the lead sings the melody, with the tenor harmonizing above the melody, the bass singing the lowest harmonizing notes, and the baritone completing the chord. The melody is not sung by the tenor or bass, except for an infrequent note or two to avoid awkward voice leading, in tags or codas, or when some appropriate embellishing effect can be created. Occasional brief passages may be sung by fewer than four voice parts.

Barbershop music features songs with understandable lyrics and easily singable melodies, whose tones clearly define a tonal center and imply major and minor chords and barbershop (dominant and secondary dominant) seventh chords that resolve primarily around the circle of fifths, while making frequent use of other resolutions. What sets barbershop apart from other musical styles is the predominant use of the dominant-type seventh chords. Barbershop music also features a balanced, symmetrical form and a standard meter. The basic song and its harmonization are embellished by the arranger to provide appropriate support of the song's theme and to close the song effectively.

Barbershop singers adjust pitches to achieve perfectly tuned chords in just intonation while remaining true to the established tonal center. Artistic singing in the barbershop style exhibits a fullness or expansion of sound, precise intonation, a high degree of vocal skill, and a high level of unity and consistency within the ensemble. Ideally, these elements are natural, unmanufactured, and free from apparent effort.

The presentation of barbershop music uses appropriate musical and visual methods to convey the theme of the song and provide the audience with an emotionally satisfying and entertaining experience. The musical and visual delivery is from the heart, believable, and sensitive to the song and its arrangement throughout. The most stylistic presentation artistically melds together the musical and visual aspects to create and sustain the illusions suggested by the music.

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Historical origins

As a result of scholarship by Lynn Abbott and Dr. Jim Henry it is now generally accepted that barbershop singing originated in African-American communities in the U.S. around the turn of the century, where barbershops were, and remain today, social gathering places. The four-part harmony of the form has its roots in the black church, where close harmony has a long tradition.

The first uses of the term were associated with African-Americans. Henry notes that "The Mills Brothers learned to harmonize in their father's barber shop in Piqua, Ohio. Several other well-known black gospel quartets were founded in neighborhood barber shops, among them the New Orleans Humming Four, the Southern Stars and the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartette." [1]. Although the Mills Brothers are primarily known as jazz and pop artists and usually performed with instrumental accompaniment, the affinity of their harmonic style with that of the barbershop quartet is clearly in evidence in their music and most notably, perhaps, in their best-known gospel recording, "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well", performed a cappella. Their father founded a barbershop quartet, the Four Kings of Harmony, and the Mills Brothers produced at least three records in which they sang a cappella and performed traditional barbershop material.

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Organizations

Singing a cappella music in the barbershop style is a hobby enjoyed by men and women worldwide. The hobby is practiced mostly within one of the three main barbershop associations, which have a combined membership in the neighborhood of eighty thousand.

The primary men's organization in the US and Canada is the Barbershop Harmony Society (also known as SPEBSQSA). Women have two organizations in North America, Sweet Adelines International and Harmony Incorporated

SPEBSQSA was founded in 1938 by Tulsa, Oklahoma tax attorney O. C. Cash. The name was a lampoon on the New Deal "alphabet agencies". Sweet Adelines, Inc was founded in 1945 by Edna Mae Anderson of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Harmony, Incorporated split from Sweet Adelines in 1957 over a dispute regarding admission of black members. SPEBSQSA and Sweet Adelines at that time restricted their membership to whites, but both opened membership to all races a few years later.

All three organizations comprise choruses and quartets that perform and compete regularly throughout the US and Canada, and Sweet Adelines International also has a portion of its membership outside North America. Organizations affiliated with the Barbershop Harmony Society and Harmony Incorporated exist in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere. Some national and regional barbershop groups include:

A worldwide association for mixed groups, the Mixed Harmony Barbershop Quartet Association[12], was established in 1995 to reflect the growing popularity of male-female barbershop singing.

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Notable artists

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Quartets

  • Acoustix, 1990 international quartet champions
  • Bluegrass Student Union, 1978 international quartet champions
  • The Buffalo Bills, 1950 international champions, appeared in stage and screen productions of The Music Man, frequently appeared on Arthur Godfrey's radio show
  • The Chordettes, women's quartet, recorded a number of mainstream popular hits during the 1950s, notably Mr. Sandman
  • The Dapper Dans of Disney, who regularly sing to visitors at Disneyland, and who sang as The Be Sharps in a Simpsons episode, and, more recently, as the animated heads-on-pedestals statues quartet in Disney's Haunted Mansion movie
  • The Gas House Gang, 1993 international quartet champions from St. Louis, Missouri
  • Gotcha!, 2004 international quartet champions
  • The Haydn Quartet, early 1900s quartet
  • Michigan Jake, 2001 international quartet champions
  • Platinum, 2000 international quartet champions
  • Realtime, 2005 international quartet champions
  • The Singing Senators, a quartet of Republican U.S. Senators
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Choruses

  • The Singing Buckeyes [13], based in Columbus, Ohio, are eleven-times Johnny Appleseed District (Ohio, the western part of Pennsylvania and most of West Virginia) Chorus Champions. They have competed many times at the international level, achieving a highest finish of third place. The chapter hosts the Buckeye Invitational each August. Men's and Women's quartets, mixed quartets, comedy quartets, and choruses compete head-to-head for the championships of their respective category.
  • Cambridge Chord Company, twice European champion barbershop chorus and British Association of Barbershop Singers gold medallists, "Choir of the World" International Eisteddfod 2004, based in England
  • The Masters of Harmony [14], five-time international champions (1990, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002)
  • North Metro Chorus, three-time Sweet Adelines international chorus champions from Toronto, Ontario
  • The Thoroughbred Chorus, seven-time international champions
  • Toronto Northern Lights [15], four-time international silver medallist chorus from Toronto, Ontario
  • The Vocal Majority [16], ten-time (as of July 2003) international champions, based in Dallas, Texas
  • The Great Northern Union [17], perennial international top 10 chorus, based in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area
  • The Rich-Tone Chorus[18], three-time Sweet Adelines international chorus champions from Richardson, Texas
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Typical Barbershop Songs

  • SPEBSQSA "Polecats" — songs which all SPEBSQSA members are encouraged to learn as a shared repertoire; these are all famous, traditional examples of the genre:
    • Down Our Way
    • Down By the Old Mill Stream
    • Honey/Li'l Lize Medley
    • Let Me Call You Sweetheart
    • My Wild Irish Rose
    • Shine On Me
    • The Story of the Rose ("Heart of My Heart")
    • Sweet Adeline
    • Sweet And Lovely
    • Sweet Roses of Morn
    • Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie
    • You Tell Me Your Dream (I'll Tell You Mine)
  • There are also several other well known songs that belong to the genre. Some of which are considered "standards", like 'From the First Hello' and 'Goodbye My Coney Island Baby', while others are well known because notable quartets are associated with them. A great example of a song like this is Come Fly With Me, which gained considerable popularity this year through association with the 2005 international quartet champions, Realtime. Examples of songs that are well known to the barbershop genre, but are not considered polecats are:
    • Alexander's Ragtime Band
    • Bright Was the Night
    • From the First Hello
    • Goodbye My Coney Island Baby
    • I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen
    • Yes Sir, That's My Baby
    • Come Fly With Me
    • When My Baby Smiles at Me
  • Lida Rose is a song beloved to barbershoppers from Meredith Willson's musical comedy, The Music Man. A barbershop quartet forms an integral part of the story, and was played by the Buffalo Bills on stage and in the screen adaptation. Barbershoppers love the show's flattering portrayal of the barbershop spirit: four bickering school board members become inseparable singing comrades once the Music Man shows them how to ring one perfect chord. Purists complain about inauthenticities in WIllson's own arrangement, which is often modified slightly for barbershop quartet performances.
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See also

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External links

nl:Barbershop sv:Barbershop